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Elon Musk has lost some of his luster with Republicans since his messy public falling-out with Donald Trump last week, a new survey finds.

Fewer Republicans view Trump’s onetime government efficiency bulldog “very favorably” compared with April, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Though most Republicans continue to hold a positive view of Musk, their diminished fervor suggests his vocal opposition to Trump’s signature spending and tax cut legislation — and Musk’s subsequent online political and personal taunts — may have cost him some enthusiasm within the party.

 

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were given special permission to come to the US will be told that they must leave the country immediately.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement Thursday that Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who were previously temporarily shielded from deportation will be emailed notices telling them to go.

The DHS said that more than half a million people from the four countries were allowed to remain in the US for two years under orders issued by Joe Biden.

 

A U.S. judge on Thursday temporarily barred Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Los Angeles, finding that the Guard was unlawfully mobilized by Trump.

Judge Charles Breyer ordered the National Guard to return to the control of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who sued to restrict its activity. Breyer's order will take effect at noon on Friday.

"The Court is troubled by the implication inherent in Defendants' argument that protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion," Breyer wrote.

The Trump administration immediately appealed the judge's order.

 

Israel attacked Iran’s capital early Friday, with explosions booming across Tehran.

The attack comes as tensions have reached new heights over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. The Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in 20 years on Thursday censured Iran over it not working with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site in the country and swap out some centrifuges for more-advanced ones.

Israel for years has warned it will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, something Tehran insists it doesn’t want — though official there have repeatedly warned it could. The U.S. has been preparing for something to happen, already pulling some diplomats from Iraq’s capital and offering voluntary evacuations for the families of U.S. troops in the wider Middle East.

 

Republicans target public broadcasters in rarely used gambit while also slashing global health programs

The House narrowly voted on Thursday to cut about $9.4bn in spending already approved by Congress as Donald Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work by the so-called “department of government efficiency” when it was overseen by Elon Musk.

The package targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country. The vote was 214-212.

Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world and will lead to needless deaths.

 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions during a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.

Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.

In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.

 

Robert Malone shared several COVID conspiracy theories during a controversial appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast at the height of the pandemic.

Robert Malone, one of the eight new members named by Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. on Wednesday to serve on the committee tasked with advising the U.S. government on vaccines, has a long track record of sharing conspiracy theories about life-saving COVID shots.

Malone, a former mRNA researcher who also runs a blog on Substack with over 357,000 subscribers that he has used to spread COVID misinformation, gained prominence spreading baseless claims about the pandemic, including in an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast in December 2021.

During the three-hour sitdown, Malone falsely suggested that former Joe Biden lied about being vaccinated for COVID while receiving his booster on live TV, and claimed that Israel, where over two-thirds of the population had received the vaccine, had a higher mortality rate than Gaza and the West Bank, which had lower vaccination rates, despite figures pointing to the contrary, according to The New York Times. He also drew a comparison between the country’s pandemic policies and medical experiments in Nazi Germany, and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of hypnotizing a third of the U.S. population into believing his recommendations on COVID.

 

He stressed that protests were "nowhere near" the level required to deploy the troops.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell sharply countered Donald Trump’s claims that the city needed National Guard support, emphasizing Wednesday that protests were “nowhere near” that level.

McDonnell’s remarks come after Trump cited the police chief as validating the White House’s decision to send in troops to address largely peaceful protests over immigration raids.

When asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if Trump had correctly described his position, McDonnell disputed the president’s statement.

“No, we were not in a position to request the National Guard,” he said. “We’re nowhere near a level where we would be reaching out to the governor for National Guard at this stage. And my hope is that things are going in the right direction now and that we wouldn’t have had to have done that, or we won’t either.”

 

DeSantis was speaking on The Rubin Report on Wednesday when he said: "We also have a policy that if you're driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle, and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety.

"And so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that's their fault for impinging on you."

DeSantis' comments come ahead of the "No Kings" protests planned for June 14. Protest organizers have said the demonstrations are non-violent and are providing deescalation training to people taking part.

 

Air India tragedy comes after firm agreed US justice department payment to avoid prosecution over 2018 and 2019 crashes

The Air India tragedy in Ahmedabad is the first time a Boeing 787 Dreamliner has crashed since the plane’s introduction in 2011.

While airlines using the Boeing plane have had widespread problems with engines on the 787 – resulting in many having to ground planes and reduce flights – its safety record in service has so far been good.

However, the US safety regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has had to investigate several concerns over the years, including a mid-air dive on a Latam flight last year.

 

Faced with federal funding cuts, scientists are learning to communicate about what they do — and why it matters.

Scientists searching for a cure for cancer have no trouble finding public support. But for those studying potato disease, it’s a tougher sell.

The Trump administration seems to have banked on the idea that the public will see much of scientific research as wasteful or arcane. It has slashed — or proposed slashing — billions in research funding.

Faced with this existential crisis, academics are seeking new ways to rally public and political support to fight the cuts and preserve their funding.

Enter a group of Cornell University graduate students with an ambitious plan to change the way people think about science. They have recruited more than 500 researchers across all 50 states to write op-eds for local news outlets, to be published over the next week. The idea, said Emma Scales, a Cornell doctoral student involved in the effort, is to have scientists introduce themselves to the public.

 

About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the time.

More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation’s top public health agency received notices Wednesday that they are being reinstated, according to a union representing the workers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed reinstatement notices went out to the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees, but provided few details.

About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the time.

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